


Revelations 4:13

by theantepenultimateriddle



Category: Homestuck
Genre: and i wanted to look at that, the kids fit the four horsemen of the apocalypse in weird ways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 17:30:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8498920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theantepenultimateriddle/pseuds/theantepenultimateriddle





	

_I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer._

Side A

Bec’s a good dog. Possibly even the best dog! And you have absolutely no doubt that he’s your best friend, too. So who could blame him for what he did? John fell asleep as your server player, god knows why, and there was no one left to prototype the sprite- obviously you couldn’t, being blindfolded and stuck trying to hit that stupid pinata. So he did what he could, and prototyped himself, and he saved you! Good dog, best friend.

Except you wish he hadn’t.

Your dog is the reason your session is doomed, or at least as doomed as it is. Your dog, who was just trying to help you. Your dog destroyed what was left of the Earth, and gave the already-overpowered final boss superpowers, and stuck the trolls in the Veil. This whole predicament is all because of Bec, and you can’t help but feel it was all because of you, too, because of the way you pushed to play the game you saw in the clouds, back when you were still the princess of Prospit’s moon (and even Prospit’s gone now). And then you destroyed your dog by prototyping him with your dead dreamself, and now he’s gone and you’re left with a version of you who is less than useless. Now he’s gone, and you’ve never felt more alone or more at fault.

Karkat insists that he’s the one who gave your universe cancer, but you know that you’re the one who made it terminal.

Side B

You’re not sure if your friends are avoiding you now or if you’re avoiding them, but it amounts to the same thing: solitude. Sometimes, you think that’s what you need, but other times you feel like something’s wrong with you. Like you’re sick, broken somewhere inside, and that’s why you couldn’t return Dirk’s affection (which if you’re honest you’re not sure you wanted in the first place). Maybe whatever love arrow from Cupid’s bow hit you both was poisoned. You don’t know. But you’re alone now. Good. Except…. Maybe you do need to talk about it.

You get out your phone to text Jane. It’ll be exactly what you need! She’s such a good friend.

_And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him._

Side A

Bro kicked your ass again today, but you guess that’s alright, because now you’re wandering around with a fuckton of swords, killing imps and monsters and gathering grist like there’s no tomorrow, which you guess there won’t be for a lot of people and maybe not for you and your friends either if you fuck up this game. Bro kicked your ass, but now he’s nowhere to be found. So you mow down wave after wave of underlings who have all decided they want the authentic Dave Strider experience, with full death included at the low, low price of absolutely free, and you think about what he would have done, and you’re pretty sure that it wouldn’t have been this. But it doesn’t matter, anyways. It doesn’t matter.

(but maybe it does, just a little)

You’re not like him. You’re no hero. You’re never going to be able to pull the sword from the stone, you’re not a fucking Arthurian legend, so you don’t even try. Instead you break it, because it’s easier than failing the first time and this sword is a piece of shit anyways so who cares if it’s not whole? And you fight with it. You make a killing in the LOHACSE, and you fight. You buy the best fraymotifs money can offer, and you fight. You stand over your own sleeping self lying on your questbed trying to figure out whether you should kill him and let him become the alpha Dave, doom your timeline to prove yourself, and you know that whatever happens there you’re going to hate yourself for being weak and deciding wrong. You don’t fight.

You turn your back and leave instead.

(coward coward coward)

Side B

The tiaratop appears on your head, and every thought you had in your mind beforehand is replaced with three simple commands.

_Obey. Submit. Consume._

You punch Jake in the stomach, aware of how wide you’re grinning as you do, and revel in the look of surprise and pain on his face, the way he flies backwards under your sheer power. Then you grab him and carry him bodily, flying out to Derse to meet the current ruler of the empire you are heiress to. You catch the eye of your daughter as she flies beside you (some small part of your mind wonders why you called Jake’s grandma your daughter, but it is easily squashed) and nod to her. Roxy, in her grip, looks at you with wide, terrified eyes. Her fear pleases you.

You present your prize before Her Imperious Condescension, and she laughs, fuchsia-painted lips open wide, words dripping with luxury as surely as if it was glitter. “Suckas,” she says, and you are amused, because they are suckers, all those you used to call friends, for thinking they could ever escape her. Even you did, once! But now, it’s different, you see.

You’re not the property of Her Imperious Condescension, no, though you’re perfectly willing to do her bidding. You’re still you, but with all inhibitions stripped away, and you marvel in how good it feels to be free of that pesky conscience.

_I looked, and behold, a black horse; and he who sat on it had a pair of scales in his hand. And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; but do not damage the oil and the wine.”_

Side A

For as long as you can remember, you’ve starved for information. You need it like you need air, like a fish needs water. Which is why it’s especially frustrating that the game you’re trapped in insists on delivering the tiniest tidbits of knowledge in the forms of inane puzzles and riddles, all wrapped and tied with a pretty pink bow. A candyland world for a girl made of sugar, is that it?

You can’t stand it. You can’t stand having the things you could know, the things you _should_ know, kept from you, taunting you all the while. For the others, the game has tried to challenge them. For you, it seems to have reverted into what it’s supposed to be: a video game for children, stuck on the easiest setting. Prizes for participation all around. Disgusting.

Well, if Sburb won’t give you what you want and won’t let you take it, it’s time for you to turn to other sources. The man with the white text incites your disgust almost as much as the game with his condescending manner, treating you like the child you’re sure you no longer are save for appearance. His answers are frustrating and circuitous, going around and around, playing the questions game with you. He says he does not lie, and you don’t believe him for a minute. But what you can get out of him is far more than you can find in the game, even with the number of things you’ve broken. Beggars can’t be choosers, and didn’t you already say?

You’re starving.

Side B

Your life on the floating city has been far from easy, but it’s still better than the lives of the carapacians surrounding you, the ones who were your only friends until you were thirteen years old. There have always been food shortages among them, as far back as you can remember, and as far back as you can remember you’ve been trying to help them. At first, it was giving them portions of the food your mom had left you, but then that started to run out and you had to stop because how are you supposed to survive without food for yourself, let alone help them?

You’d vowed that you’d never use any Crockercorp devices, made a promise to yourself. You’re sure your mom left some of them lying around as a passive-aggressive dare: are you going to use the convenient devices made by the woman who killed me and doomed the human race? The tyrant who created the situation you’re in? Is it worth it?

The appearifier just lies there, and you know that if you use it you could at least get a start on solving the problem, but you think of your mother lying dead in front of the Batterwitch and shy away from it. Then you think of the people around you, starving, the people you could help but aren’t, and you close your eyes and pick it up. _Sorry, mom. This goes way beyond you._

Despite your attempts, there’s never going to be enough to food to go around, no matter how many pumpkins you appearify.

The only thing there’s never going to be a shortage of is booze.

_I looked, and behold, an ashen horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him._

Side A

It’s your birthday, and your mood has sort have been flip-flopping all day, starting with your consistent disappointment that the Sburb beta hadn’t come yet, followed quickly by your excitement that it was here, and then by the further disappointment that your dad was beating you to the mail. All of this was heightened by your frustration with your sylladex, throwing random things around, etc, and by your strife with your dad. But now, finally, you put the disc in your computer and you watch the loading screen, jittery with excitement.

You can’t wait to play this game!

Side B

When you get back into the incipisphere, you find that it’s been totally destroyed, and you swallow to try and hide your fear. You fly around the mess, searching for something, someone, anyone, _please?_ But there’s silence, complete and total, except for the crackle of the glitches in space.

The lands are broken, smashed into each other with some kind of force- you’re not even sure what it was, but it was huge. You see lands you don’t recognize, and a few you do- there’s Jane’s, smashed into a red planet, covered in lava. Yours and Jake’s collided, leaving fragments everywhere. And nowhere to be found in this catastrophe are any of your friends, which means there’s only one conclusion: while you were flying around trying to get back, they died. Again. And this time, you weren’t fast enough to save them. Your chest tightens. It’s not cold in the incipisphere, but you shiver.

You float in front of a statue of your denizen, Yaldabaoth. Given only to the strongest players, but if you’re the strongest then that’s just more proof that you could have done something but didn’t. The space around you is glitching, but you don’t care.

From behind you, there’s a voice. “Hey there. Are you Dave’s bro?” You don’t answer, and the owner of the voice gets more irritated. “Hey! Did you hear me? Where is everyone?” There’s a pause. “I’m John, by the way.”

“John,” you say, and the word comes out hoarse and choked. “Could you please just leave me alone.”

He doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter- you can’t really hear him after that, as the glitch intensifies and distorts the words. One question slips past, though. “Do you know what happened here?”

“Yeah.” You stare at the calamity through your shades. “I failed.”

You don’t move as the glitch consumes you.


End file.
